Elon Musk emailed all of Tesla about attempted ‘sabotage’ by an employee

Tesla CEO Elon Musk emailed his entire company just before midnight last night saying that an employee had been caught conducting “damaging sabotage to our operations,” according to CNBC, which obtained the email. The employee was allegedly found to have made “direct code changes” to Tesla’s manufacturing system and sent “large amounts of highly sensitive” data to third parties.

The employee has already been questioned by Tesla, and Musk says it’s continuing to investigate whether the employee was working with others. In his email, Musk questioned whether “Wall Street short-sellers,” “oil & gas companies,” or “the multitude of big gas/diesel car company competitors” may have been involved. “If they’re willing to cheat so much about emissions, maybe they’re willing to cheat in other ways?” he wrote.

“This is when outside forces have the strongest motivation to stop us.”

Musk says the employee claims to have taken action because he didn’t receive a promotion. “In light of these actions, not promoting him was definitely the right move,” Musk wrote.

This morning, Musk emailed the entire company again, according to CNBC, to alert them to “another strange incident”: a “small fire” on a production line. There were no injuries, but it stopped production for several hours, according to the email. “Could just be a random event, but as [former Intel CEO] Andy Grove said, ‘Only the paranoid survive,’” the email reads. “Please be on the alert for anything that’s not in the best interests of our company.” CNBC previously reported that the factory’s paint shop has seen at least four fires in the past four years.

Tesla is under a lot of pressure right now to ramp up production on the Model 3, which launched last summer. The company was supposed to be making 5,000 per week by the end of 2017, but missed that goal by a large margin. It then missed another target, 2,500 per week, in April. Tesla was making 3,500 per week as of June 5th and said it expected to hit 5,000 by the end of the month. Until Tesla hits that point, the company has said it will lose money on every car it makes.

In his Sunday night email, Musk asked employees to remain “extremely vigilant” over the next few weeks as production ramps up on the Model 3. “This is when outside forces have the strongest motivation to stop us,” he wrote.